Howard Keel publicity shot ca. 1950. A prominent name in Hollywood musicals in the first half of the 1950s, Howard Keel was seen – and heard – as baritone-voiced, larger-than-life characters in a quintet of the best-liked entries in the genre: Annie Get Your Gun,…
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Lillian Gish: The Birth of a Nation actress enmeshed in Bowling Green University controversy. Should Lillian Gish be labeled a racist because at age 21 she had one of the lead roles in D.W. Griffith’s landmark – and to this day contentious – 1915 Civil…
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Machiko Kyo. Japanese star Machiko Kyo was seen in several of the most widely admired cinema classics of the 1950s, including Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu, and Teinosuke Kinugasa’s Gate of Hell. In addition to Daniel Mann’s international blockbuster The Teahouse of the August…
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Bibi Andersson in The Seventh Seal. Remembering international arthouse cinema icon Bibi Andersson: Frequent Ingmar Bergman actress & four-time ‘Swedish Oscar’ winner International arthouse cinema icon Bibi Andersson, a blonde beauty best known for her 14 collaborations with filmmaker Ingmar Bergman – 11 big-screen features…
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Kay Francis. Kay Francis revisited: One of the brightest & most underrated Hollywood stars of the 1930s Kay Francis is the star of the day (April 9) on Turner Classic Movies, which is presenting 10 of her films. One of the biggest Hollywood names of…
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John Boles. Actor & singer John Boles remembered On March 4, Turner Classic Movies is remembering actor-singer John Boles, a name that even the majority of film historians and connoisseurs will likely have trouble recognizing. Yet John Boles – who could both act and sing…
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Magnificent Obsession book by Anthony Slide. Whereas Lloyd C. Douglas’ 1929 Magnificent Obsession book dealt with a playboy’s urge to restore the eyesight of the woman he had accidentally blinded, Anthony Slide’s latest explores the lives and times of movie buffs. Now, are Twilight, The…
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Valentino with Rudolf Nureyev and Michelle Phillips. Ken Russell’s 1977 Rudolph Valentino biopic Valentino is based on the dubious 1966 bio (“Was he a great lover – or a sham?”) penned by Chaw Mank and Brad Steiger. A coal miner’s son and self-proclaimed psychic, Mank…
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Jimmy Edwards. Best known for his radio and television work – Take It from Here in the former medium; Whack-O! in the latter – British comedian Jimmy Edwards was seen, mostly in small parts, in about a dozen features from the late 1940s to the…
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“Movies” or…? Quo Vadis: One of the first feature films ever made, Enrico Guazzoni’s Italian epic came out in 1913, going on to become a global sensation. Should American “moving picture” fans of the early 1910s have referred to it as a “photoplay” or a…
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Desert Nights with John Gilbert and Mary Nolan: Enjoyable Sahara-set adventure – which happened to be Gilbert’s last silent film – dares to ask the age-old philosophical question, “Is there honor among thieves?” John Gilbert late silent adventure ‘Desert Nights’ asks a question for the…
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Updated: Following a couple of Julie London Westerns*, Turner Classic Movies will return to its July 2017 Star of the Month presentations. This evening, July 27, Ronald Colman can be seen in five titles from his later years: A Double Life, Random Harvest (1942), The…
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‘Under the Volcano’ screening: John Huston’s ‘quality’ comeback starring daring Albert Finney As part of its John Huston film series, the UCLA Film & Television Archive will be presenting the 1984 drama Under the Volcano, starring Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset, and Anthony Andrews, on July…
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Ronald Colman: Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month in two major 1930s classics Updated: Turner Classic Movies’ July 2017 Star of the Month is Ronald Colman, one of the finest performers of the studio era. On Thursday night, TCM presented five Colman star vehicles…
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Crime novel The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding. While her husband is away during World War II, housewife Lucia Holley – the sort of “Everywoman” who looks great in a two-piece bathing suit – does whatever it takes to protect the feeling of “normality”…
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Roy Rogers, Singing Cowboy of 1940s and 1950s Hollywood. Known for his affable characterizations and, both on and off screen, “traditional values” stance, the King of the Cowboys – step aside, John Wayne & Gene Autry – toplined the “subversive” 1938 musical Western Under Western…